Write On

 

Sketchbook page, ink and watercolor with some Inktense.  NFS.

  So if you read yesterday's entry, I went to the Mad Writers' Club at the Mad Raven bookstore yesterday and got inspired to write and make art to go with my writing.  I want to marry the two, maybe illustrate some poems and maybe write a children's book and illustrate it.  

   Our assignment for this week was to write about a color without naming the color (synonyms ok).  On my way home the moon was almost full and everything was shades of... yeah, blue, I'm sure you guessed that.  So yesterday morning I wrote this little piece to evoke the moody blue, and though the events described are fictional, I have certainly felt that way.  I love living in the country where the stars are alive.  Anyway, the whole thing went in my sketchbook today with the paragraph I wrote for the assignment and a wee watercolor painting to illustrate it.  

   Oooh! This is the first time I've broken out my fancy new Copic multiliners (I sprang for the good ones where you can replace the cartridges and the nibs both), although I only used them for writing.  They're mostly just hanging out till Inktober!

   Speaking of my sketchbook, I wrote this reminder to myself in the front of it, because I have decided that it's pretty important to me to master drawing people, my one gigantic weakness in art, and I've already got a hideous drawing in it that I'm not even brave enough to show you right now.  Maybe after I improve I'll share it to show the improvement, ha!  And, I want to do more plein air/urban sketching, which means some hasty doodles that are not going to knock anyone's socks off.  That's all okay, as long as I'm still making art.

    I hope you made something today, and if you love it, wonderful, and if you don't, I hope you make some more art tomorrow.  <3

Peace Love and Yupo

My painting for today is pen and ink flowerdy peace sign on Yupo paper with watercolor mush around it. Yupo is WEIRD y'all.  Not sure I like it.  May need to play more.  I think it might be cool if I did a thick, permanent resist with puddled colors in the center, similar to THIS painting, but in watercolor on Yupo instead of acrylic on board . The cool thing is, this stuff comes in transparent form, so there are ideas for that.

 

 

Yesterday my (art major senior at TTU) son Brandon and I had an artist's date of sorts... my husband is in Nashville for his NRLCA Union convention so we went to have dinner with him and spent the day in Nashville.  This entailed a trip to Jerry's Art-a-Rama, and to the Frist Center for Visual Arts, where their rotating exhibit is currently Italian cars.  I took a TON of reference photos, since I'm mildly fascinated with painting cars lately.

Also on exhibit was the work of surrealist Inka Essenhigh.  I didn't think I was a surrealist fan but I thoroughly enjoyed her work, especially this painting, called In Bed . I'm sure my little thumbnail does it NO justice, but its subject is splayed out in bed with gremlins pulling her eyes open and spilling her guts.  Haven't we all had nights like that?  One thing I was particularly fascinated with was the source of light in several of her paintings.  In this one it seems to be the center of the subject and the center of the painting (the "guts") -- see the shadows the gremlins cast and the bed, as well?  I also love the way the blinds add a touch of the mundane and lead the eye into the painting.  The colors are impossibly vibrant, too... no photo of it could possibly do it justice.  If you're local, take a trip up there, it's worth it.

   

Russ's convention was at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, which is an amazing place.  It's nine acres of gardens which are INSIDE the hotel, with the rooms built around and overlooking it, complete with waterways (you can actually take a boat on one of them), waterfalls, gorgeous fountains.  The hotel was all but destroyed with the horrible flooding we had in 2010.

I took a lot of reference pictures there too, but walking through the lobby I spied this glass sculpture and rushed over to it, thinking:  CHIHULY!!  It wasn't, it's done by Ludech Hroch, and once again, my picture does it no justice.  If you get the opportunity to visit the grounds of the hotel, you should take that too.  The sculpture's name and theme are totally appropriate for the hotel and its return from near destruction; it's called "Resurgence."

  

I dropped by Hobby Lobby looking for a frame for the picture I did of Nick's car, having not found anything online that I really liked.  They had a 12" square frame with a 5x5 opening but nothing with 6x6, but then I saw this "floating" frame that is truly perfect.  Nick liked it, too.  I'm pretty happy with how it came out, considering it's the first time I've painted anything reflective in watercolor.

In a final bit of news, the little painting I did of Oldham Theater this week prompted a friend to commission me to paint the entire theater (not just the marquee), with "Star Wars" on the marquee, because he has fond memories of seeing Star Wars there.  Since I planned to paint the theater at night anyway, I'm looking forward to that challenge.  I think I might go for an evening/sunset theme, just to give myself a headache.  

Lots of news today!  Thanks for reading. 

Hecate

I'm finding this aspect of motherhood - the letting go, the transition from he needs me to he is an adult - far harder than anything that has gone before. I wrote a poem about it today. 

And in honor of this time, today's henna design (day two) is the symbol of the Crone goddess Hecate. 

The sky cracks 

    In a stroke I am sundered in a way

         only a child can break your heart. 

There is loss

There is grief

There is guilt

  but there is a way forward. 

The goddess knows the way. 

                  I want to hold on, a jealous dragon

                       a mother hen aching to gather her

                             chick to her breast

   but there is a chasm that will not allow it. 

Did I create it?  This distance, did I push...

      No, he wandered

   as he was bound to do

                    and I am still here in this place, 

                        This empty nest, asking

Who am I now?

Who are we?

          If you were a lover I would say,

     "Let's go our separate ways, I cannot take this pain,"

...but you are a part of me Forever, and if I lost that part

   There would be no healing

for me

or for you. 

I was your rock --

No, that's not right. 

            I AM YOUR ROCK. 

    I have not moved, you have, but there is a way to brudge the gulf between us

      trial by fire

  and in my deepest heart echoes

if I let go

if I let go

if I let go...

It is time for the Wheel to turn

time for Mother to become Crone

time to redefine me as you are redefining you

and we define Us, together. 

There is grief at this loss, at the boy who is gone,

But all endings are also beginnings. 

Art Journal!

I've been wanting to do more art journaling.  I've been using my handy dandy sketchbook more but today I cracked open the journal - it's kind of a parchment-y paper that would probably be okay for ink.  It wrinkles a little with watercolor though.  I may go back to regular watercolor paper.

Anyway, last week I took a bunch of stuff to the county fair.  My two paintings got a 2nd and 3rd place (talked about that last week if you missed it) in the professional category.  But what was super cool was that my dried Cayenne peppers got a Best in Show in the Miscellaneous/Honey Canning category.  So I thought I'd journal that.

I also really need to practice drawing from life more, so this was an exercise in that too.  So, more journal pages to come, for sure.

Also, I'll be starting on a painting to donate to White County Animal Shelter for their fund raising at Liberty Square festival.  Pretty excited about that, stay tuned. :)

Patterns... not my forte

When I got my pans of iridescent watercolor I did the background for this in my watercolor sketchbook, just playing with the colors and splotching them around (I'm not sure you can see them very clearly in the pictures).  Then I used a compass and pencil and made a circle, and it basically sat that way for a couple of months.  

The plan was to make a mandala over it.  What's a mandala?  The word is Sanskrit for "circle."  It's a meditative ritual in Hinduism and that's basically my use for it here.... they're very relaxing to create once you get into a pattern, somewhat like Zentangles but better because of the meaning and symbolism involved in creating them.  I plan on making more.  Here's my Mandalas Board on Pinterest.

The other day I had an idea to use the compass some more, so I traced these circles in pencil, then retraced them without the compass in ink (fountain pen).

Then I filled it in with dip pen and India ink.  Except I messed up that one line... darnit.  Good thing this is in my sketchbook.  

And then... as I picked up my dip pen to clean it I flicked a blob of ink on it.  Grrr... note to self.  Put the artwork safely away before you clean up.

 But, it was a fun exercise that I may revisit either in watercolor again (larger this time), or maybe, if I'm brave, henna impasto.  Wouldn't that be wild looking, with a tie-dye background... or maybe tie-dye impasto paint, a concept I've wanted to try out for some time.

I have a bunch of typing to do today and I really have to get the jump on jewelry for my huge show coming up in October, but I'm hoping to sneak back into the studio later today if I can manage it.

Mysterious

The valley spirit not dying
Is called the mysterious female.
The opening of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Continue on the brink of existence
To put it into practice. Don't try to force it.
-- Tao Te Ching

This is a Zentangle. I'm playing with it so I can work on my abstracts.